Crit with Brenda Ridgewell

I had a very interesting and motivating conversation with Brenda Ridgewell, the Director of Jewellery and 3D Design at Curtin University, Western Australia. She told me that she really liked my work and she had seen it at the NSA Gallery, I told her that it needed replenishing as I felt quite embarrased because I have been neglecting my stand, due to circumstances and only have one piece left to show, she told me that I should keep renewing it as it looks bad from a supplying point of veiw to the seller's at NSA or elsewhere.
Brenda also told me that I must carry on using the technique and designs that I use but develop them more which she said is about 30 years in the making as development never really ends so long as you stick with the same idea or technique.

Future Intentions: handmade with African Spirit

I want to build up an industry which focuses on creating and selling quality, handmade goods which are not your run of the mill items. In other words I would like to make, design and source items which are made by South Africans, such as Jewellery, shoes, bags and even ornaments which emanate a truly African spirit without being your predictable, cliche items found in curio shops. I want each piece to be handmade using hands-on, time honored techniques that are not a result of mass-production processes such as mould making, dye-forming or assembly-line production. There is just one issue regarding this type of industry which is the labour cost, each item tends to be more expensive due to the amount of time it takes to manufacture the items, I do not want these goods to only be accessible to the higher earning class so I would have to find a balance so that lower earning people can afford it too, perhaps by creating and sourcing smaller, less time consuming goods made from cheaper materials.